Pasta Tossed with Tomatoes & Myzithra

When you think of Greek cheese, you probably think of salads topped with feta. Or — if you’re old enough to have frequented restaurants before the days of increased fire code safety — you think of cheese with flames shooting up from it and a waiter yelling “Opa!” (That dish, saganaki, is typically made with kasseri cheese and lemon juice. Fried halloumi cheese is delicious, too.)

Although I didn’t know it at the time, I used to adore another simple dish based on Greek cheese: the Old Spaghetti Factory’s pasta tossed with myzithra cheese. When I lived in San Diego, the Old Spaghetti Factory down in the Gaslamp Quarter was my favorite restaurant (where else can you dine inside an old trolley car?), and that dish was my favorite thing on the menu. Makes a lot of sense now that I know myzithra cheese is a member of the made-in-Greece-with-sheep’s-milk  family. My favorite cheeses are those made from sheep’s milk, and the Greeks — along with Spanish and Basque cheesemakers — are the masters of sheep milk.

Much to my delight, myzithra cheese is becoming more readily available Stateside. The dry, aged version, that is. I’ve never managed to find the fresh, soft version, although I hear it’s much like ricotta in terms of texture and possible uses. The dry, aged version is decidedly salty and savory and is perfect for grating. It doesn’t melt well, though, so don’t try to make macaroni and cheese with it. And you certainly don’t need to add salt to your recipe if you’re using aged myzithra. In this dish, the cheese’s inherent saltiness pairs nicely with the sweet juiciness of the tomatoes.

Pasta Tossed with Tomatoes & Myzithra
Serves 2, but can be easily doubled or tripled as you see fit.

2 servings whole-grain pasta of your choice (brown rice pasta is a tasty option and is gluten-free)
Chopped tomatoes (I like cherry tomatoes the best since they seem to be the juiciest, but use whatever you like best; I also like a lot of tomatoes, but again that’s your call)
Mzyithra cheese (a little goes a long way)
1 tsp. dried mint
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 T. extra-virgin olive oil
Freshly ground pepper

Prepare the pasta according to package directions. While the pasta is cooking, halve the tomatoes if they’re small or chop them if they’re larger than bite-sized. Grate about 1/3 cup of cheese and be ready to grate more to taste.

Toss the cooked pasta with the remaining ingredients and taste to see if you’d like to add more cheese. This would be lovely topped with chicken sautéed in balsamic vinegar — again, the sweetness of the balsamic would contrast nicely with the salty, savory cheese.

Enjoy!

Sheep's-Milk Yogurt with Grapes & Honey

I’ve been on a yogurt kick lately, and there’s a darned good reason for that: I finally found sheep’s-milk yogurt! Old Chatham Sheepherding Company sells their sheep’s-milk yogurt in various grocery stores to the lucky folks on the East Coast and through their website to sheep-curious shoppers who aren’t within shouting distance of New York.

Even though the shipping costs as much as the yogurt — it has to be shipped in cold-packs — it’s worth the splurge. (If anyone knows of a store in Metro Detroit that sells sheep’s-milk yogurt, please let me know!) Sheep milk is richer than milk given by cows or goats, and it strikes a flavor balance between the mildness of cow milk and the grassy, earthy character of goat milk. And the whey doesn’t separate from the solids the way the whey separates with cow milk, so no need to stir sheep’s-milk yogurt back together. (Although herein lies a tip for the lactose-intolerant: since most of the lactose is in the whey, draining it off will leave you with a decreased-lactose yogurt. The cultures gobble up the lactose to live, too, so the more cultured the yogurt/dairy product is, the less lactose it will have.)

Incidentally, most yogurt made in the Mediterranean is from either sheep or goat milk, not cow — cows don’t do well in rocky, hilly terrain where vegetation is sparse. Sheep and goats do. So if you’re having Greek yogurt in Greece, odds are you’ll be eating sheep’s-milk yogurt. But since plenty of the States are dairying areas and since cows give much more milk than sheep and goats do, practically all yogurt in the U.S. is made from cow milk.  Let’s hope those of us who adore sheep’s-milk cheese and yogurt can change that!

[Sheep's-Milk] Yogurt with Grapes & Honey
This recipe is sized for an individual serving, but feel free to make as many servings as you like! Makes a delicious and easy breakfast, snack, or dessert.

1/2 cup whole-milk yogurt, preferably made from sheep milk, but whole-milk yogurt from cow milk works, too (Fage Greek yogurt is a great choice)
Drizzle of honey
Splash of vanilla extract (about 1/4 tsp.)
12 small red grapes

Stir honey and vanilla into yogurt and taste to see if you’d like it to be any sweeter. Be careful about adding too much vanilla — a little bit goes a long way. Start with 1/4 tsp. and work your way up. And remember that the grapes will be sweet, so don’t overshoot with the honey, either. Add grapes and serve promptly.

Goat Gouda, White Cheddar & Spanish Manchego

You can’t go wrong with a classy cheese.  It can be goat cheese, sheep cheese, cow cheese, yellow cheese, white cheese, orange cheese…it can have gray ash or dried cherries or dried herbs in it.  It can even have blue mold in it.  Whatever its story, top-notch cheeses always have a welcome placemat on my table.

One of the great things about cheese is that it’s delicious served alongside something (or melted into something or sprinkled on top of something) or all by itself.  Another great thing is that there is an astonishing array of cheeses out there — Spain alone boasts over 100 native cheeses.  And nowadays, smaller-scale stores are starting to offer small pieces of cheese amongst the larger chunks.  Samplers, if you will.  (Large chain stores, however, are not good places to explore new fromage frontiers.)  That way, you can get a nice piece of a $15/lb. cheese for $2 and see if you like it.

Whenever I’m poking about in the cheese basket, I go for variety:  I try to find one cow’s milk cheese, one made from goat’s milk, and one from sheep.  Not only is it more interesting to taste the (very!) different flavors each one offers, but it’s also a good way to avoid overdoing it on cow’s milk and risk developing an allergy to it.  I also try to get raw cheeses whenever possible — they’re more flavorful and easier to digest.  (Again, mixing things up helps prevent problems down the line.)  And when you’re talking top-notch cheeses, you’re also talking milk from grass-fed animals, which is another big nutritional and gustatory plus.

The above selection, for example, includes a Benning goat Gouda from Holland, a 12-month Manchego sheep cheese from Spain, and an American St. German artisian white Cheddar.  (My all-time favorite American cheese is Prarie Breeze.)  On that same trip — to my great delight! — I also found a cheese made from cow, goat, and sheep milk…quite an intriguing blend of flavors.  (I ate that wedge before I got a chance to take the picture.  Oops…but yum!)

A few things to remember when serving cheese for yourself or others:  let it come to room temperature, and don’t be afraid of mold.  If it molds, that just proves that you have some very lively cheese.  Cut off the specks and eat the rest before the bacteria beats you to it.  (As a matter of course, you might want to cut off the sides of the cheese that touched the plastic wrap since it can sometimes leave an aftertaste.)  As far as the room-temp thing goes, if you’re not going to eat the whole wedge, it’s best to cut off the part you do want, tightly re-wrap the remainder and stick it back in the fridge, and then let the sacrificial chunk come to room temperature.  (You can speed that process up by slicing or cubing it.  That also makes it easier to eat the cheese.)

If you’re lactose-intolerant, you may very well be able to consume raw dairy products, so you might want to give raw-milk cheese a shot.  (Look at the ingredients to see if it’s made of unpasteurized milk.)  If you have a problem with cow milk, you might be able to consume goat or sheep milk.  Plenty of European cheeses –and some American ones — are made with those.

And if you’re shopping in boutique markets in New York, you might just stumble upon Caravane.  It’s the only cheese in the world made of camel’s milk and it is at the top of my Fantasy Food List.  (Along with Moroccan argan oil and Tibetan yak-butter tea.)  If anyone out there has sampled Caravane, please let me know how it tastes!